WHILE he didn’t quite meet his best-scenario expectations, Luke Shadbolt was happy with his performance in this year’s Finke Desert Race.
Shadbolt, 31, headed to the Queen’s Birthday long weekend event for the first time in a decade this year, hoping to finish better than his previous Finke performance.
But a crash on Sunday afternoon took the wind out of Shadbolt’s sails just as the best result had seemed possible.
“I managed to get back on the horse and finish the race but it was a bit tough going after that,” he said.
“I’d have been happy to pack up and go home but having gone to all that effort I wanted to keep going.”
Shadbolt had improved his position to be 45th by the first checkpoint on Day 1 before the crash happened.
“I had a big stack and dropped back to 76th. Come Monday morning on Day 2 I was too sore and too busted to race like a madman,” he said.
Shadbolt said the accident had occurred at speed when he’d been in a good position.
“I had the spill at close to 100 mile and had a ton of bruises and ((grazed)) skin. There’s nothing broken though,” he said.
Shadbolt said he was glad to participate and anticipated being back in the future.
“I ended up 132 in the overall results and finished 18th in the class of 48. There were 600 bikes overall and 450 finished,” he said.
“In hindsight, if I’d kept it on the wheels I should have beaten my last effort. But the times were fairly promising so I’ll have to head back next year.”
